The research area Prof. Goossens coordinates is on design innovation for Healthcare (Human Centered Healthcare) that involves co-creation with patients, medical professionals, and non professional users (family and friends) in different projects: Such as the Surgeons Cockit, that focuses on the quality in surgical performance; HIPP a project that generates a long term vision for the future of cure and care for orthopedic patients; and the Princess Maxima Centre for Pediatric Oncology to advance the quality of care and cure through design innovation.

His own research is on the physical human factors during professional product use. The emphasis is on research of ergonomics in relation to product development in order to establish safe, comfortable and error-free task fulfillment in complex multi-user situations in a medical setting. The goal is to generate design requirements, methods and products. The requirements should anticipate the implementation of these products on a large scale and daily use.

This is done by obtaining insight in physical user aspects, such as anatomy, biomechanics, anthropometry and physiology in order to understand the underlying medical aspects of user complaints. These insights form the basis for biomechanical modeling and verification experiments on various user groups. Once scientifically validated, the acquired knowledge is transformed in engineering recommendations and products, which themselves can be evaluated as well.

Prof. Goossens has 82 peer reviewed publications and owns 6 patents. In 1997, he was given the ANNA-Award, for his biomechanical studies on the musculoskeletal system in order to prevent pressure sores.